Future City

third Wednesdays, monthly, 1 p.m. & 9 p.m.

It's easy to talk about what’s wrong in Baltimore. The challenge is to talk about what’s next. Wes Moore takes on the challenge, with WYPR's Future City.

In each episode, Wes looks at bright ideas that are working in other cities. And he asks the question: Can those ideas work for Baltimore?

Who's Wes?

Wes Moore is a decorated Army combat veteran, youth advocate and CEO of BridgeEdU, a national initiative focusing on addressing the college completion and career placement crisis by reinventing the Freshman Year of college. He is also the author of two instant New York Times bestselling books, The Other Wes Moore and The Work.

Ways to Connect

Despite a White House initiative, and major reductions in cities across the nation, veteran homelessness is still a problem in Baltimore. Wes looks at what we might learn from Riverside, California, a city that effectively eliminated veteran homelessness two years ago – and is well on its way to reaching “net zero” homelessness overall.

America's relationship with pot today is a lot like it was with alcohol at the end of Prohibition: Awkward, and enshrined in a patchwork of changing laws that contradict each other. At the federal level, pot is illegal and a major focus of the War on Drugs. At the same time, states and cities across the U.S. are making it legal for medical use, and increasingly, for recreational use as well. Denver did that two years ago, and much has changed in that city as a result. Wes looks at what Baltimore (where the drug is still mostly illegal) can learn from Denver's path to marijuana legalization.

In the 1990's, Cincinnati's schools were so bad that Ohio's Supreme Court deemed them unconstitutional and demanded a radical overhaul. The city answered the call with a remarkable innovation: They converted the schools into community learning centers, where healthcare, dental care and daycare could all happen in the building, right alongside academics. Wes looks at how community schools changed life in Cincinnati, and how Baltimore has begun to embrace the trend, as well.